What advice would you give to your teenage self?
Listen up my teenage self…hindsight affords us innumerate opportunities to do things differently…but I will focus on what’s most important. Time is the most precious commodity!
Learn to harness it…
“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”
– Dr. Seuss
You may have heard people say “my teens and my twenties were over in the twinkling of an eye”… I look back and I would have to agree that your early years do fly by rather quick. Time passes the same as it always has, but our perception is shaped by the experiences we have had.
The perception of time varies from person to person and situation. When we’re engaged in a rather interesting past time, time, seems not to tarry. However, put your mind to the most boring task and watch how the watch seems to stand still!
Time is the one resource you cannot capture for it slips through the grasp like sand from a hand.
Harness Time
If I were to live my teens again… I would seize the moment and not let any opportunity to be wasted to savour this beautiful life.
I would take in every moment spent with loved ones, reading that favourite book or watching that thrilling movie…..and so much more.
There were things that we all do in our teens that brought us no joy but we just did them for others, or it was in style or under pressure of our cultures or society at large.
In Economics, there is a concept of an opportunity cost. Engaging yourself in meaningless pursuits decreases your time, which could have been spent on experiences that would have uplifted you for the remainder of your life.
You may wonder what I mean by harnessing time? I would tell my teenage self, there is a time to be hasty and a time to be cautious.
There is a time to be hasty, when you have experiences of travel beckoning, take the plunge and see all you can see.. taste those unique cuisines.. take that train journey to the ends of the earth! Learn a new language.. take up a new hobby.. paint the streets with your youthful vigour!
There is a time to be cautious in choosing a career, relationships or faith. Hasty choices here can take you deep inside that rabbit hole and become a wormhole.. transporting you from your teens to your thirties or forties. For all such aspects of your life, I would suggest giving it some thought!
Xquist Life 
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